Transformation Thursday! Week 2

Welcome back for Week 2 of Transformation Thursdays!

 

This week I am featuring a simple project I did last week to spice up our new half bath! We are prepping for our big move in just a few weeks and I'm getting really excited about decorating the new place. Our current half bath is nothing to write home about... I credit it to the pee colored walls yall know I love hate. So, I thought this would be a cute, cheap and easy way to spice up the wall space in our new half bath!

 

Remember this old guy? Its a vanity we picked up a while back and revamped for a client's daughter's room. We also featured it on our first (and only at the moment!) post of Where are they now? back in April.

 

 

The vanity was rough. Originally purchased for their daughter but the piece never made it out of their garage and was covered in paint, grease, and dust when we took it home. As you can tell the top had seen better days and we ultimately chose to remove it completely. That left me with two small drawers that I wouldn't dare throw away. Thats called hoarding... I'm aware. Fortunately, I stumbled upon them again this past week and had a great idea of how to upcycle them for our new half bath!

 

Rather than use them as traditional drawers, I thought they'd work perfectly as small shadow boxes. They are too small to hold extra TP or soap, but they are the perfect size for a pillar candle. Sold!

I only wanted to repaint the inside of the boxes, so first step - taping off the outside.

 

 

Even though the boxes were already painted white, I decided to hit them with a quick coat of primer. This ensured that my paint stuck (since these little guys aren't real wood) and it took care of any residual smell from its time spent in the garage.

 

 

I then hit it with two coats of my favorite turquoise and waited for it to dry so I could remove the painter's tape.

 

 

And... ta-da! We have some fancy, upcycled shadow boxes!

 

 

 

Such a simple project but I have a feeling they are going to add a little something extra to our new half bath! I'll be posting lots of before/after pictures of our new place and these will definitely be included! So stay tuned!

 

Happy Treasure Hunting,

Ashley

 

 

NEW Custom Mirrors

We recently did a dresser and mirror revamp for a client's nursery. Remember this beauty?

 

 

The dated dresser came with an equally unappealing mirror. I of course forgot to snap a picture of the mirror before we transformed it, so I'll let you imagine the difference. Basically we built a new, rustic stained frame for her existing mirror.

 

 

After getting such a great response and lots of inquiries for more mirrors on our Facebook page, we decided to make some more! The first one we stained Dark Walnut and used a dry brushing technique to add some turquoise color to it.

 

The second one we stained using Minwax's Special Walnut-- my favorite! 

I was really happy with the look of both mirrors. They are much larger than our client's original mirror and would work great hanging behind a sofa or as a wardrobe mirror. Much prettier than those $5 plastic Walmart ones, right?

 

Since we had such a great response, we're going to add these to our ATG Originals! Whether you have a mirror of your own or would like us to purchase one for you, contact us at againstthegraindesigns@yahoo.com and we can get you a quote! The best part about these - is we can paint or stain them to match the rest of your furniture!!

 

I've already had Nick make me one for our new house. I'll be posting lots of pictures in June of our new place, so stay tuned.

 

 

Happy Treasure Hunting,

Ashley 

Transformation Thursday! Week 1

To spice things up, I thought we'd start Transformation Thusdays! Catchy, right? We'll feature a piece that we've recently revamped and show you all the beautiful details of the before and after. So here's our first one -- a dresser we revamped for a client's nursery.

She inherited the piece from some friends and it was in great condition! Although it wasn't solid wood - there was so much potential.

So, we repainted the base a bright turquoise color and added a new top stained with Minwax's Dark Walnut. The client also opted to replace the hardware - such a simple way to update a dated piece of furniture. Here's how she looks now - such a transformation!

The original dresser also came with a matching mirror that I of course forgot to snap a picture of! The client wanted us to create a rustic, but matching frame for it to go in the nursery as well. Here is what Nick came up with -

 

I can't wait to see the pieces in their new home! Keep you posted...

 

Happy Treasure Hunting,

Ashley

Moving on up...

Finally... we are moving! With our expanding family and expanding business it's past time we moved into a larger place. We've been in a 2 bed/2 bath townhome with a 1 car garage since we got to Kansas. For a long time it was all we needed. I could have done without the pee-colored walls but we liked the neighborhood, our neighbors and it met all of our needs. Then Against the Grain blew up and we had furniture coming out of our ears... seriously, anyone that has picked up furniture at our house can tell you - there is furniture in the hallway, the living room, kitchen, and oh lordy that garage was getting just a little cluttered. Not to mention we have a baby on the way so that extra room will come in handy in 6 months!

I mean, hello, I think this is a fire hazard of some kind...

 

So where are we going? Not even a mile up the road. Here she is -

Its a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a 2 car garage! The ceilings are tall. The walls are WHITE. The kitchen is small, but I can manage. There is an actual laundry room, not a closet like we had before.  And look at that beautiful, fenced in back yard. Palin is going to LOVE it!

 

I'm going to take lots of pictures once we get the keys so I can show off the before/afters once we are settled! To say we are excited is an understatement. We've been feeling crammed in our current house for a long time. I can already tell you the additional space in the garage and the unfinished basement (aka storage space) is going to make ATG things more organized and more productive!!

 

Now I just need to start packing...

 

Happy Treasure Hunting,

Ashley

Our Bedroom: Dresser Reveal Part 2

We recently inherited a dresser from some crossfit friends. Nick and I both joined Junction City Crossfit at the beginning of the year and are still loving it! I haven't been able to keep up my regular schedule of going five days a week since I found out I'm pregnant, but I'm still making it a few times a week and loving the workouts. You guys should definitly check them out.

 

Ok, so back the furniture... We inherited a dresser from some friends. Here it is:

 

It's solid wood and other than a few scratches from their cat on the bottom drawer, it was in great condition. And it was massive!! This thing is about as tall as I am and has some super deep drawers. Sooo, we decided to keep it. We recently updated a long, six drawer dresser to use as a dresser/TV stand in our master bedroom and we thought this guy was the perfect match.

 

 We gave it a light sanding to buff out the scratches and painted it the same Cottonwood color we used on the long dresser and our downstairs hutch. Creatures of habit? Yes we are. We also opted to add a Farmhouse Style top to it, even though the top was in great condition. I thought it'd help tie the two pieces together and make them look more like a set than two seperate pieces. We stained the top using Minwax's Special Walnut.

 

Here's the after...

 

We replaced the dated hardware with some cup pulls we purchcased on Amazon.



We are still in the process of deciding what to put on top - it's too tall for nicknacks, basekets or smaller picture frames. I purchased this 16" x 20" frame on clearance at JoAnn's not to long ago, so I'm thinking I'll frame one of our baby announcement photos since our house is already filled with wedding photos!

 

 

Although it doesn't match perfectly with our other dresser, I think the two pieces compliment each other nicely. Now my hubby has a space for all of his clothes and so do I! Mission accomplished.

 

Here is a before picture of the dresser we had been using. This thing had seen better days. I purchased it, originally a brown color, at Goodwill while in college for my first apartment. I painted it white shortly after and my husband attempted to paint it brown and blue a few years later -- that's when it lived in my closet... it was not pretty. Once we got to Kansas, we painted it white again and distressed it with some teal. So, this poor thing has at least five coats of paint on it. I was able to sell it at our garage sale recently and was kind of sad to see it go.... but it served its purpose and is on to another family!

 

Before:

 

After:

 

I'm still considering having Nick put a piece of molding along the bottom to cover the scalloped piece.  I'm also not a huge fan of the swirly curly q's on the top drawer but didn't want to spend the time filling them... lazy I know! What do you think?

 

By the looks of my closet, some sort of shoe organizer might be our next project!

 

Happy Treasure Hunting,

Ashley 

April Showers...

Well unfortunatly the weather this month has been just as unpredictable as it was in March! I'll never get use to this fickle Midwest weather. We had snow, we had hail, we had LOTS of rain, we had 70 degree days and a few 30 degree days... but, we worked through them all! I will be so happy to have Spring here to stay.

 

Fortunatly the weather didn't slow us down too much - which is great becaus we had orders coming out of our ears! Here's a look at some of our custom builds and revamps from April.

 

 

 

 

  

 

And here are a few of the custom pieces we did this past month...

 

 

 

A few clients submitted photos of our pieces in their new homes! Erin's farmhouse style coffee table, seen above in our driveway, is now all settled in along with a set of our redneck wine and redneck margarita glasses. 

 

 

Tracy asked us to recreat a mantle shelf she saw featured on Pinterest. You might remember the post we did earlier this month. Here's a look at her shelf all decorated in her master bedroom.

 

 

Don't forget to submit your photos if you've purchased revamps of custom furniture pieces from us! We love seeing where they end up.

 

Happy Treasure Hunting,

Ashley